


Avoiding The Mirror

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - First Anime, Community: fma_fic_contest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Physical injuries weren't all Roy Mustang had to deal with after fighting Fuhrer Bradley. It was just all he was going to tell anyone about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avoiding The Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Fake prompt at [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fma_fic_contest/profile)[**fma_fic_contest**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fma_fic_contest/) .

He honestly hadn't planned on surviving. Surviving didn't fit into the classical Atonement Death myth, and he hadn't ever thought he'd be more likely to survive than the heroes in his teacher's stories had been.

Everything had been a haze of drugs for months.

He hadn't noticed it at first, not with needing others to care for him (and his personal rule about bed baths while injured had always been not to watch).

The first time he truly had to confront it was when he was dropped off in Briggs, alone in an outpost with a phoneline to his superior, two weeks of food at a time, and a booklet of exercises he was supposed to be doing.

But he had to look at the scars to do the exercises, so he didn't.

Months in Ishbal had taught him how to wash without taking the time to look.

He put the eyepatch on first in the morning and took it off last at night, never looking in a mirror without it.

Never risking a mirror without it.

It was so cold it masked the pain instead of making him ache. He would stand out in the snow, even when he wasn't officially on guard, just to get chilled enough to stop hurting.

Then, the invasion happened. He discovered he could use alchemy again.

So did the state. He was transferred back, given his old rank, and placed behind a desk.

It took so much to ignore the aching, but he wasn't about to let anyone know. He didn't want to be medicated for it. He didn't want the judging looks for not doing the exercises.

He didn't want to be ordered to do the exercises.

And he didn't want anyone else to look, now. The annual military physical was bad enough, even with everyone knowing that yes, he was deskwork bound now except during emergencies.

He wore long sleeves and long trousers in all weather.

The notorious girlfriend-stealing alchemist stopped dating. It wasn't worth the anxiety, and besides, how could he ask anyone to stand a face like his now?

No, those days were over. Gone.

And so the years went on and the muscle in his leg seized up because the scar tissue wasn't being stretched, but it was better than looking.

He knew better to look. He'd tried, just after the invasion. He'd dropped Miss Rockbell and Sheska off on the Central Headquarters grounds, then gone walking toward one of the military bathrooms.

It had been quiet. He had been alone.

He had stood in front of one of the mirrors, at the sinks, and just barely lifted the edge of the eyepatch. Just to see if he could stand it.

He had fallen to his knees, retching.

When Armstrong found him, he'd claimed it was residual airsickness.

It was a mark of all they had seen together, had been ordered to do together, that neither of them said the obvious: Armstrong didn't believe a word of it.


End file.
